There were voices in the hallway.  For a moment the dying man showed some signs of returning consciousness.  A crafty look came over his face.  What was he contemplating?

The door opened and Balcom and his son Paul entered.  Balcom walked jauntily, but with a suavity of manner that was always his.  Paul looked at his best, except for the fact that he carried his left arm in a silken sling.

Balcom greeted them all, and at his voice the dying man actually showed a sort of agitation.  A strong shudder seemed to pass through his body, then, like a spring suddenly uncoiled, he sat up.

He was fully conscious now and strove to rise to his feet.  It was a tremendous effort, but he succeeded, and stood confronting Balcom, while the ominous light of hatred that gleamed from his eyes as they encountered those of Balcom made even that well-poised man recoil and shudder.

With the muscles of his face working convulsively the dying thug tried to speak.  All those standing in the library realized that it was to accuse, to denouce.

However, the effort proved too great, and with a groan that was ghastly the man fell backward on the couch, dead.

Murdering brute that he had been, still to Eva and Locke he now represented nothing but a stricken human being, with a human soul, blackened and warped.  But Balcom and Paul seemed to show unmistakable signs of joy and relief.  It was so evident, Locke thought, that he turned to them.

“Your coming seemed to have an unfortunate effect,” he hinted.  “The man seemed to know one of you—­at least.”

“Nothing of the kind,” retorted Balcom, nettled.

Locke turned to Paul and regarded his injured arm questioningly.  Paul, however, never lost his accustomed aplomb.

“I was hurt in an automobile accident,” he explained, though with what seemed to be a trifle of nervousness.

Locke turned to the doctor.  He was rubbing his hands, and smiling, with great unction, an action very unbecoming, to say the least, in a medical man who had just lost a patient.  Taken all in all, Locke felt he could now sense the web of conspiracy tightening around him.  The cards were still in the hands of his enemies.

He determined to incur any risk, to leave no stone unturned in order to bring the criminal to justice, whoever he might be.  One thing encouraged him.  The events seemed to have mollified Eva.  He made an almost imperceptible signal to Eva, who left the room to dress for the street.

Meanwhile Locke left the library and went to a private telephone that connected the garage to the house.  He ordered the chauffeur to have a fast runabout ready for instant call.  Then, at the other telephone, he notified the coroner’s office of the death of the emissary.

By this time Balcom, Paul, and the doctor came out of the library, the doctor in high good humor, for had he not received a huge fee?  He left in his car.